> The hardware is built around a stackable 10×10cm compute module with two ARM Cortex-A55 SBCs — one for ROS 2 navigation/EKF localisation, one dedicated to vision/YOLO inference — connected via a single ethernet cable.
I will preface this by saying that I have nothing against ARM per se, that my employer/team supported a good chunk of the work for making ROS 2 actually work on arm64, and that there is some good hardware out there.
I really don't understand why startups and research projects keep using weird ARM SBCs for their robots. The best of these SBCs is still vastly shittier in terms of software support and stability than any random Chinese Intel ADL-N box. The only reasons to use ARM SBCs in robots are that either (1) you are using a Jetson for Jetson things (i.e. Nvidia libraries), or (2) you have a product which requires serious cost optimization to be produced at a large scale. Otherwise you are just committing yourselves and your users/customers to a future of terrible-to-nonexistent support and adding significantly to the amount of work you need to bring up the new system and port existing tools to it.
> The only reasons to use ARM SBCs in robots are...
Obviously, anyone can have there own opinion on this.
I work in robotics, we are quite happy with our A53 and M4. Though, we use a SOM, not a SBC, if you feel like splitting hairs.
What's your payload?
Where are the seeds?
How are they deposited?
Recommend going to a farm right now to see how this works in production. For the most part, you can autonomously sow using GPS. But the farmer just rides along.
From a video somewhere in the page: "The aim is to make food production more sustainable and efficient" yet requires a web app. I'd hope that you can run the server side on a local machine and not require cloud connectivity.
Thanks, bit conflicted about it TBH, it's primarily/initially a weeding robot, although I do dream of expanding it to do harvesting, and yes potentially sowing too down the line.
What's the plan for using an engraving laser in open air without blinding a neighbor? Does the bot fully roll over the target area before firing or something?
I sometimes help out at a hobby vineyard of 0.7 hectare; weeding in the row is a lot of manual labour. Your platform seems like a good fit. I like tinkering and robotics, what kind of price point are you aiming for?
a simple ride on mower with a diy inter row disc (basically just a belt and pulley with a spring) may be enough. probably just get sonebody with a tractor and inter row disc weeder to do the job for you.
I highly encourage you to go visit farms sooner rather than later, especially during the rainy seasons and winter when farmers are really at work preparing for the next season. The kind of conditions robots need to deal with in that environment is no joke.
I also notice you're using the BNO055 -- if you need an C++ I2C ROS driver for it I wrote one (https://github.com/dheera/ros-imu-bno055). I think the one in the ROS apt-get repository is written in Python but they claimed the package name before I did
Good advice on farms. I do live on a farm, so somewhat familiar with mud! Many of the worst problems are caused by moving 20ton tractors around IMHO, one of the problems small scale ag robotics may help with.
Will check out your Bno055 currently using the upstream one in Lizard
I will preface this by saying that I have nothing against ARM per se, that my employer/team supported a good chunk of the work for making ROS 2 actually work on arm64, and that there is some good hardware out there.
I really don't understand why startups and research projects keep using weird ARM SBCs for their robots. The best of these SBCs is still vastly shittier in terms of software support and stability than any random Chinese Intel ADL-N box. The only reasons to use ARM SBCs in robots are that either (1) you are using a Jetson for Jetson things (i.e. Nvidia libraries), or (2) you have a product which requires serious cost optimization to be produced at a large scale. Otherwise you are just committing yourselves and your users/customers to a future of terrible-to-nonexistent support and adding significantly to the amount of work you need to bring up the new system and port existing tools to it.
Obviously, anyone can have there own opinion on this. I work in robotics, we are quite happy with our A53 and M4. Though, we use a SOM, not a SBC, if you feel like splitting hairs.
Part of the point of this for me is to see what's possible with open hardware (down to chip level at least)
[1] https://github.com/NVIDIA-ISAAC-ROS/greenwave_monitor
Recommend going to a farm right now to see how this works in production. For the most part, you can autonomously sow using GPS. But the farmer just rides along.
For me personally mechanical between row weeding is step one, then laser in-row weeding.
1. These on some linear actuators: https://www.getearthquake.com/products/fusion-drill-powered-... (they work surprisingly well)
2. Beyond that for in-row weeding a engraving laser on a Delta: https://github.com/Agroecology-Lab/Open-Weeding-Delta/tree/m...
Or if I'm feeling rich by then this third party weeder looks pretty good https://github.com/Laudando-Associates-LLC/LASER
3. For Seeding my salad crop https://reagtools.co.uk/collections/jang
4. Harvesting my salad crop https://reagtools.co.uk/products/quick-cut-greens-harvester
I live on a farm, I have sold salad commercially, these are largely tools I already use and own, just moved about by motors rather than muscles.
This is a smaller scale thing than arable. We're talking a step up from manual horticulture (which is actually what still feeds much of the world)
Strapping something like the Jang P6 to it is probably feasible https://reagtools.co.uk/collections/jang
For the harvester it would be a bolt on for https://reagtools.co.uk/products/quick-cut-greens-harvester or maybe https://reagtools.co.uk/products/babyleaf-harvester-80cm (I grow green salads)
Beyond that for in-row weeding a engraving laser on a Delta: https://github.com/Agroecology-Lab/Open-Weeding-Delta/tree/m...
Or if I'm feeling rich by then this third party weeder looks pretty good https://github.com/Laudando-Associates-LLC/LASER
In my head it's £3-£5k, so by the time it's useful probably a bit more than that.
(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻
Thank you.
I also notice you're using the BNO055 -- if you need an C++ I2C ROS driver for it I wrote one (https://github.com/dheera/ros-imu-bno055). I think the one in the ROS apt-get repository is written in Python but they claimed the package name before I did
Will check out your Bno055 currently using the upstream one in Lizard
https://github.com/zauberzeug/lizard/blob/main/main/modules/... https://github.com/zauberzeug/lizard/blob/main/main/modules/...
Any review of that welcome too of course.